Avenged Sevenfold released their sixth studio album, 'Hail to the King,' on Aug. 23. Although the act's fans have been eating up the album, Avenged Sevenfold have been met by various detractors as well, including Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn. Avenged Sevenfold singer M. Shadows responded to Flynn's criticism a short while ago, and now, guitarist Zacky Vengeance has done the same.

'Hail to the King' sold 159,000 copies in its first week, giving Avenged Sevenfold a No. 1 album in the U.S. In response to both the album's success and its content, Flynn congratulated Avenged on their "covers album" before typing up "Top 10 jokes about the new Avenged Sevenfold record" list. Flynn also called out Avenged Sevenfold on "blatant jackery," claiming plagiarism on behalf of Megadeth, Guns N' Roses and most notably, Metallica. Avenged has faced much criticism over the track 'This Means War' in particular, which even by M. Shadows' admission, bares a strong resemblance to Metallica's 'Sad But True.'

In a new interview with Kerrang!, Vengeance spoke up in reaction to Flynn's comments. "With any success, a lot of voices come out, and you start hearing a lot more opinions on the matter. We've provoked very strong reactions in both directions since day one … "My only comment [on Robb] is that I really, truly hate to see any sort of divide in rock and metal."

Vengeance continues, "I think everyone's trying to come up together and bring up other bands along the way, and we've always been really blessed to have bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden take us under their wing and say nice things about us ... We hope to do the same for younger, up-and-coming bands, because we're just not ready to give over the throne of rock and metal to a bunch of bands that blow on jugs and play tambourines!" [via Blabbermouth]

Machine Head also recently asked if Avenged Sevenfold have possibly stolen from them as well. In a Facebook post by Machine Head, the band lined up their 'lion crest' logo next to a new Avenged Sevenfold crest, asking fans to weigh in on whether or not Avenged ripped off the crest design.